Phone novel Chapter 215: Impasse
Chapter 215: Impasse
That realization spread across every battlefield in Pampanga.
Every trench.
Every roadblock.
Every outpost.
Every aircraft cockpit.
No matter how many died.
No matter how much firepower humanity unleashed.
The horde kept advancing.
And now heavier weapons were entering the fight.
High above the darkness.
Far above the reach of the infected.
A different aircraft was arriving.
Call sign Specter One.
An AC-130J Ghostrider.
The massive gunship circled over Central Luzon at twenty thousand feet.
Inside the aircraft, the atmosphere felt calm.
Professional.
Almost routine.
Which was strange considering the apocalypse unfolding beneath them.
Rows of operators sat behind glowing screens.
Targeting systems.
Thermal cameras.
Infrared sensors.
Fire control displays.
The battlefield stretched beneath them.
And the view was horrifying.
One sensor operator zoomed in.
Then zoomed out.
Then zoomed out again.
The horde still filled the display.
Thousands.
Tens of thousands.
Everywhere.
The operator shook his head.
"Looks like somebody kicked an anthill."
The fire control officer looked at his screen.
"Correction."
He pointed downward.
"Several anthills."
The pilot banked slightly.
The aircraft entered a stable orbit.
The AC-130’s greatest strength wasn’t speed.
It wasn’t stealth.
It wasn’t altitude.
It was persistence.
The aircraft could remain overhead for hours.
Watching.
Tracking.
Killing.
The sensor operator suddenly highlighted a target.
"Large concentration."
The fire control officer looked.
The thermal display revealed thousands of infected moving along an abandoned expressway.
The mass stretched nearly a kilometer.
Perfect.
The officer keyed the intercom.
"Target designated."
"Recommend engagement."
The answer came immediately.
"Approved."
The gunship’s targeting computer locked onto the horde.
The fire control officer smiled.
"Let’s work."
The 30mm cannon fired first.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.
The rounds walked across the expressway.
The front ranks of the infected vanished.
Bodies exploded.
Limbs flew.
Entire sections of the roadway became covered in corpses.
The cannon continued firing.
The stream of rounds swept left.
Then right.
Then left again.
The horde began disappearing.
Yet the concentration remained enormous.
The officer switched weapons.
"Forty-millimeter."
The Bofors cannon immediately joined the fight.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Each shell exploded directly inside the densest portions of the horde.
The effects were catastrophic.
Clusters of infected disappeared beneath overlapping blasts.
The expressway became a field of fire.
The aircraft continued orbiting.
The guns continued firing.
And below them, death continued spreading.
One of the operators looked at the kill zone.
Then quietly muttered.
"Damn."
Nobody disagreed.
Meanwhile.
Several hundred kilometers away.
Another aircraft prepared for war.
This one much larger.
Much faster.
Much deadlier.
A B-1B Lancer.
The bomber sat on a runway while ground crews completed final inspections.
The aircraft looked enormous beneath the floodlights.
Its swept wings.
Its massive fuselage.
Its four engines.
Everything about it screamed power.
Inside the cockpit, Colonel Jason Reeves studied the mission briefing.
The target area covered multiple kilometers.
The objective was simple.
Thin the horde.
Destroy as many infected as possible.
Create time.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The pilot looked toward his co-pilot.
"Ready?"
The answer came instantly.
"Let’s go hunting."
Moments later.
The engines roared.
The bomber accelerated down the runway.
Faster.
Faster.
Then airborne.
The giant aircraft climbed into the night sky.
Back on the ground.
Private First Class Miguel Herrera continued fighting.
The trench line had become chaos.
The infected were close now.
Too close.
The machine guns fired continuously.
Mortars launched overhead.
Rifles cracked nonstop.
Yet the infected kept advancing.
One fast variant suddenly burst from the darkness.
It crossed nearly fifty meters in seconds.
A machine gunner spotted it.
"Runner!"
The M240 opened fire.
BRRRRRRT.
The creature lost an arm.
Then half its torso.
Then finally collapsed.
More appeared behind it.
The trench erupted into gunfire.
The soldiers fired point-blank.
Several infected reached the outer wire.
Then the inner wire.
Then the kill zone.
Bodies piled higher and higher.
The smell of blood filled the air.
Then something changed.
A distant sound echoed overhead.
Deep.
Powerful.
Unmistakable.
Several soldiers looked upward.
"What the hell is that?"
Miguel listened.
Then heard it again.
The roar of heavy jet engines.
Very heavy jet engines.
Thirty thousand feet above Pampanga.
The B-1 Lancer arrived.
The bomber’s radar painted the battlefield below.
The screen looked ridiculous.
The infected concentrations were so large they resembled cities.
The weapons officer stared at the display.
Then slowly smiled.
"We’re not going to run out of targets."
The pilot nodded.
"Nope."
The aircraft approached the designated release point.
The targeting systems updated.
Coordinates confirmed.
Wind corrections confirmed.
Release profile confirmed.
The weapons officer took a breath.
"Target area locked."
The pilot steadied the aircraft.
The bomber crossed the release line.
Then—
"Bombs away."
The payload bay opened.
A stream of precision-guided bombs dropped from the aircraft.
One.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
More.
The bomber continued releasing.
The bombs fell silently through the darkness.
Far below.
The infected kept advancing.
Completely unaware.
Then the first impact arrived.
BOOOOOOOM.
The explosion lit the countryside.
Then another.
Then another.
Then dozens.
The earth shook.
Entire sections of terrain vanished beneath overlapping fireballs.
Roads disappeared.
Fields disappeared.
Buildings disappeared.
And with them—
Thousands of infected.
The chain of detonations stretched across kilometers.
From above it looked like a line of volcanoes erupting simultaneously.
The blast waves rolled outward.
The fire spread.
The destruction continued.
The weapons officer watched through the targeting display.
Then quietly spoke.
"Direct hits."
The bomber continued forward.
Behind it, the landscape burned.
Huge portions of the horde no longer existed.
Massive gaps had been carved into the infected advance.
For the first time that night, entire concentrations stopped moving.
Because they were gone.
Back aboard Specter One.
The AC-130 crew witnessed the bombardment.
Even from their altitude, the explosions looked massive.
The sensor operator stared.
"That’s a lot of bombs."
The fire control officer laughed.
"That’s a B-One."
The gunship continued orbiting.
Then another target appeared.
A huge concentration moving around the bombed area.
Trying to reconnect the separated hordes.
The officer immediately designated it.
"Engaging."
The 105mm howitzer fired.
BOOM.
The shell landed directly in the center of the mass.
The explosion erased dozens instantly.
Then another round followed.
And another.
The giant cannon continued firing.
The infected continued dying.
The battlefield had become a furnace.
Artillery.
Fighters.
Attack helicopters.
Tanks.
Gunships.
Bombers.
Every weapon available was now engaged.
And still.
Beyond the fires.
Beyond the craters.
Beyond the shattered highways and burning towns of Central Luzon.
The recon drones continued seeing movement.
More roads filling with infected.
More towns emptying into the horde.
More bodies marching south.
The night sky glowed orange from hundreds of explosions.
The ground shook continuously.
Millions of rounds had already been fired.
Thousands of bombs had already fallen.
Hundreds of thousands of infected had already died.
And yet.
The battle for Pampanga was nowhere near over.